In the distance, on the border of France and Switzerland, lies the immense CERN accelerator complex. This series of particle accelerators increases the momentum of the packets of nuclei to near the speed of light, then collides them. He collects the debris of the resulting destruction in hopes of finding the building blocks of matter. This is a general overview of what happens at CERN, but when you look closer, this process becomes much more difficult and complicated. How does this “Atom Smasher” work? How is it built? More importantly, how do the thousands of euros invested in this expensive research benefit the practical world? CERN's accelerator complex uses cutting-edge technology and complex processes to accelerate particles to just below the speed of light. The first step involves introducing hydrogen atoms into a chamber and stripping them of their electrons. This provides the particles that are accelerated. The LINAC-2 linear accelerator, an accelerator that propels particles to high speeds via electromagnets in a linear vacuum tube, increases the speed of nuclei up to a third of the speed of light. The next accelerator, the Proton Synchrotron Booster, divides the package into four parts and then accelerates them further. This is a circular accelerator, as opposed to linear, because at this speed, accelerating protons in a straight line would not be practical. This beam could travel around the world in a second. The booster's electromagnets bend the beam around the ring, while the electric field increases the speed, much like pushing a child on a swing. The booster sends the bunches into the proton synchrotron and recombines them into a single bunch. This is where things start to move extremely fast. The Proton Synchrotron, 628 meters in circle...... middle of paper ...... Particle accelerators could even cure the great scourge of modern times, cancer. By firing a carefully controlled 400 EV beam at the cancerous tumor, it would kill the cancer, saving the subject's life. The people at CERN do great work and are well worth the funding. The particle accelerator is a complex machine with many complicated parts and costs a fortune to operate, but if they continue to contribute to advancements like this, it will be worth it many times over. Particle accelerators are constantly improving and could help the world discover many more things, like alternate dimensions and new particles. There is still an entire universe out there, and every physics puzzle we solve, every new gadget we make, every new cure we find, exposes new problems for the world to solve, because the more we know, the more there is to know..